Page 7 of The Duke of Swords (The Highwaymen #4)
A tear, she realized. He was crying.
She started to shake. No, it wasn’t meant to be like that. Where was that power from before, that ancient power that had connected them? Where was that feeling of safety she’d had in his arms? Why was it all gone now?
Rutchester stood up. “I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I cannot possibly—”
“You can,” said Fateux. “Now that you’ve looked at her, are you going to let her be shared amongst four other men?”
Rutchester’s nostrils flared. His gaze flitted over her, lingering on her breasts and then down to look at her thighs. He met her eyes. He let out a breath. “Right, then. Face down on the bed.”
Fateux groaned. “For the sake of all that’s holy—”
“Let’s leave holiness out of it,” said Rutchester in a grim voice.
Fateux laughed. He shoved her forward.
She stumbled.
Rutchester caught her, his hands gentle as he righted her. “It may be easier if you don’t have to watch.”
She reached up to touch his face. “I don’t think so,” she whispered.
He was trembling. He furrowed his brow.
She sat down on the bed, still looking up at him. Then, she lay down on her back, swallowing hard, wondering what it was she was doing. Should she fight? If she fought, maybe Rutchester would help her fight. Maybe…
She lay her hands down at her sides and clenched her hands into fists.
She looked up at the ceiling. She had done this before, and it was nothing.
If he didn’t hit her or choke her, and she didn’t think he would, it would be fine.
She could do it. It was easier if it was just him, anyway.
She didn’t want the threat of four men at once, didn’t want to find out what other places in her body could be jammed full of men’s pricks.
Then, nothing happened.
Rutchester swore under his breath. “Turn around at least,” he said.
She looked at him, confused, but realized he was addressing Fateux.
Fateux smirked, shrugged, and did as he was told.
Rutchester turned back to her. His gaze flitted over her bare skin, and he got that hungry look in his eyes again, and she felt a surge of that ancient outside-of-all-of-them power ignite her.
She gasped.
He fumbled with his belt. His hands were shaking. The metal of the clasp was jangling as his hands trembled. He could not undo it.
She moved without thinking, sitting up, and she helped him.
As she did it, she thought that she was behaving in that mad way again, her wits addled. What was she doing? She should not help with this, should not assist him in this endeavor. She was behaving in a disgusting way, and she should stop.
But then, she was undoing the falls of his trousers, and he sprang out of his smallclothes, and she let out another gasp, because…
God in heaven, that was huge.
She recoiled from it, gaping at the size of it. It was thick, and the tip was reddened and weeping and it was like nothing she’d ever seen in her life .
Rutchester let out an audible breath.
She couldn’t stop looking at it. It wasn’t actually frightening, she thought.
It was skin, just skin. It was interesting .
It was… something tightened in her the longer she looked at it, something between her thighs.
It was a pleasant sort of tightness, she thought.
She bit down on her lower lip and then she did something quite, quite mad.
She touched it.
Oh.
It was silky, hot, yet so firm. It jerked against her touch, and Rutchester made a noise and she made a noise, and—
“You don’t have to do that,” Rutchester said in a strangled voice, pushing her hand away.
She hunched up her shoulders, scolded. “Apologies,” she whispered.
Fateux turned around. “What is happening?”
“Turn around,” said Rutchester fiercely.
Fateux looked at Rutchester’s member and his eyes widened and then he did turn back around, clearing his throat.
She lay back down on the bed, letting out little breathy noises, and her fingers seemed to be moving of their own volition as she ran her fingers over the inside of her own thighs, parting them, showing him, remembering that time he’d looked at her before, the expression on his face.
She rubbed herself there, gently. Why was she doing it?
She didn’t know. It made the pleasant tightness tighter and more pleasant.
She made a noise that might be rightly called a moan.
Rutchester pounced on her.
She gasped in surprise, arms going out in surrender, but she thought she might be smiling. She liked that, she thought, affecting him, making him lose control. Even if he was a dangerous man, some kind of frightening beast, even if so, she liked it.
They were chest to chest. His face loomed over hers. She blinked up at him. At the same time, she could feel his hardness against her, against her body, and it was sliding around there, which was interesting, because there hadn’t been any grease this time, but it felt as if it might…
She wriggled her hips.
And the tip of him slid into her, lodged inside her.
She gasped again.
He made some kind of awful noise, something agonized, and then he angled his hips and pushed in deeper.
It was different this time.
It felt… not good, not exactly good, but not like Fateux, not—
Rutchester took both of her wrists and picked them up and stretched them over her head, holding her down against the bed. He began to thrust inside her, long, slow, lazy thrusts, and she sort of—no, she couldn’t—liked it.
There was another surge within her, that outside-of-them power, and it seemed to flow into her, like the wide mouth of a river, pouring into her, moving in and out with the same rhythm as Rutchester’s thrusts.
It was good.
And then it was over.
He pulled free of her body and his member spurted something hot and wet all over her belly, and then he stood up and was tucking himself away, buttoning his trousers.
She was reeling. She lay there. Her legs were shaking. Muscles in her stomach, muscles she shouldn’t even have been using, were twitching.
She tried to relax, but her body felt strange and taut and unfinished and wanting.
Rutchester moved across the room, a storm of movement. He punched a painting on the wall, shattering the glass, leaving the landscape within encased in splinters. Then he left the room, slamming the door behind him.